Frontline: D.C. schools downplayed cheating allegations
GREG TOPPO
Greg Toppo is USA Today's national K-12 education writer. He's interested in tech & how video games are changing school.
A new documentary raises questions about whether Washington, D.C., school officials downplayed allegations that educators were cheating to improve students' scores on high-stakes skills tests — even after a principal came forward with her own eyewitness account.
Washington's Noyes Education Campus was the subject of a 2011 investigative series by USA TODAY, which first reported on unusually high numbers of wrong-to-right pencil erasures on standardized test papers going back to 2008.
The erasures weren't direct evidence of cheating by staff members, but strongly suggested tampering, experts told USA TODAY.
Administered citywide each spring, the math and reading exams gained new prominence in 2007, afte